Κυριακή, 17 Ιουνίου 2012

Stephen Fry's Parthenon Marbles plea backed in debate vote

A call
backed by actor Stephen Fry for the return to Greece
of the British Museum's
Parthenon Marbles has come out on top in a debate held in London.

Fry said it would be a
"classy" move to restore the sculptures brought to the UK by
Lord Elgin in the 19th Century.

The debate, hosted by
Intelligence Squared, ended with a majority for the motion of 384 to 125.

Opposing the motion,
Tristram Hunt MP said the British
Museum played a key role
in cosmopolitan culture.

The Greeks were a proud
people suffering terribly, Stephen Fry told the audience in London's
Cadogan Hall, but "no matter how much the sovereign debt crisis means they
owe us, we will never repay the debt that we owe Greece."

He said he revered the British Museum
as "one of the great flowerings of the Enlightenment" but that
returning the Marbles to Greece
would be an act of "grace and decency".

He said it would be
"classy" if future visitors to the British
Museum could see a "Parthenon
experience" including a film showing how Britain
had curated the marbles "beautifully" for 200 years and then handed
them over to Athens' Acropolis Museum.

Mr Hunt supported the
argument advanced by the British
Museum, which says there
is a need for collections like its own which allows many different cultures to
be compared.

The museum says the
division of the sculptures between London and Athens "allows
different and complementary stories to be told about the surviving sculptures,
highlighting their significance within world culture and affirming the place of
Ancient Greece among the great cultures of the world."

It should be a source of
pride to the Greeks that the sculptures, as a symbol of Greek culture, were
such an important part of the British
Museum's collection where
it could be compared with exhibits from other civilisations, said Mr Hunt.

He feared that restoring
the Marbles could lead to a "purge" of museums in which
"tit-for-tat recoveries" of objects by their countries of origin
would lead to a "global loss of appreciation and understanding".

He said the Marbles had
been legally acquired with a permit from the Ottoman
empire and the Greek government had never challenged their
ownership in an international court.

But Stephen Fry said the
argument did not apply because Greece
was an occupied country at the time.

Proposing the motion to
send the sculptures back, Andrew George MP said it may be that Elgin helped preserve the
sculptures, but that job was done now.

He said he was
"appealing to Britain's
better instincts" and that restoring the sculptures willingly now would be
better than a "cringing climb-down" some time in the future.

The debate comes a week
before an "International Colloquy" in London
on the Parthenon sculptures in London, organised
by the British, US and Australian committees calling for their return to Greece.
Those attending will hold a "planned organized attendance" at the British Museum on 20 June.